The year was 1978: Prime Minister Aldo Moro had been kidnapped in Italy, the US Senatorial proceedings were broadcast on the radio for the first time, and Patrick Moriarty was teaching his junior high science class about solar eclipses.

Explaining their trajectories, the path of totality, and other such details, the class took a look at which upcoming eclipses would pass over their hometown of Rochester, New York.

“Hey, circle that one on April 8th, 2024,” Moriarty recalled telling his students. “We’re going to get together on that one.”

Laughing, the class carried on the lesson, and every new group of 17-year-olds that came through his classroom got the same joke, with inevitably the same reaction.

The years went by. The Berlin Wall fell, the Dot Com Bubble crashed the stock market, the US elected a black man to be president, social media embedded itself into our lives; and then suddenly, Moriarty was looking at the calendar and it said ‘2022.’

He always used to tell his students that he’d take out an ad in the newspaper, but since people don’t really do newspapers anymore, he set up a Facebook group to track down some of his old charges and see if his promise meant as much to them as it did to him, but didn’t expect much forty to fifty years on as one might imagine.

But the group soon circulated among former students who kept up connections, and hundreds expressed interest in the event. Soon plans began to take shape, and Moriarty hired a local pizzeria to cater the event, and bought 130 pairs of eclipse glasses.

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Then the big day came, and the head-spinning reconnection began with all the students, whose faces Mr. Moriarty mostly did not remember, but whose names he did. The students came from all over the country, with children, with life stories, and with 45 years of life experiences to share.

Jokes were made: ‘you seemed taller’ said one, ‘this has got to be the longest homework assignment ever’ said another.

In the hour before the eclipse, Moriarty was back in class: teaching the variety of middle-aged students exactly as he once did about the science behind an eclipse.

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Eventually, the Moon passed over the Sun, but even the spectacular stargazing event couldn’t eclipse the incomprehensible moment shared between strangers who were nevertheless bound by an almost 50-year joke.

“When teachers go into education, they hope that they can be that kind of teacher that would have an impact on people and make a difference for people,” Moriarty, 68, told The Washington Post’s Kyle Melnick.

“And this event right here just firmed it up for me that I guess I did okay.”

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